Nepal (catch all)

[Ray]

More as a bacgrounder:

China tries to sabotage border roads

22 Dec 2007, 0116 hrs IST,Amalendu Kundu,TNN

GANGTOK: The Kunming bonhomie notwithstanding, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China is undercutting Indian Army's efforts to strengthen its presence on the border. On November 23, a week before the visit of defence minister A K Antony and chief of army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor to Sikkim, PLA soldiers unloaded boulders in an effort to wreck the construction of a metalled road at Fingertips, a strategic spot near Gurudongmar in North Sikkim. The area is close to the Kangra La pass bordering south-west Tibet.

Indian troops, however, swung into action the next morning, and removed the obstruction. The road construction — at an altitude of 18,500 feet — was completed on November 27. Chinese representatives, however, did not speak about the offensive at Fingertips during a meeting between army representatives from both sides on November 23. They also kept quiet on the bunker dispute at the trijunction of Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet.

Significantly, prior to the Fingertips manoeuvre, Chinese troops had entered Indian territory and asked Indian Army personnel manning the border post there to stop construction of the road.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/I...ow/2642152.cms

[JJackson]

US in contact with Nepal Maoists

[Ray]

KING AND COMRADES
- The Maoist victory in Nepal is not as conclusive as is made out

http://www.telegraphindia.com/108050...ry_9216492.jsp

[Norfolk]

No, it's not, but then the Communists comprised only minorities in the parliaments of many Eastern European states in the late 1940's. The Maoists may not have a "friendly" foreign army to lend them irresistable force, but there is no way that the hard-core is going to give up on their ultimate goals - whatever they may be - any time soon.

I just can't see how any real good will come out of this predicament, either for Nepal itself, or for India.

[Ray]

It is a very delicate and tricky situation; more so, it the guerillas are taken into the Army!

It is the power hungry and ruthless King who has led this situation to come to pass to this sorry state!

One must watch the situation carefully.

With Tibet up in flames, China would love a fraternal buffer!

[Ray]

MISSION POSSIBLE - The new Nepal needs to recognize that it cannot do without India
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

The spotlight that has shifted from Shri Panch Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva should rightly fall on Sitaram Yechury, to whom the United Progressive Alliance government virtually outsourced India’s relations with Nepal. Since he has been the principal interlocutor between the two countries, our expectations of a stable and responsible regime that is mindful of India’s interests on a strategic border are largely concentrated in him. Much will depend on how Yechury has presented the Indian national position, as distinct from his own ideological inclinations, to Prachanda and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

Strictly speaking, the transformation of the world’s only Hindu kingdom into a republic is no concern of India’s. Forms of governance are internal matters. But since domestic evolution is intertwined with foreign policy, especially for a landlocked country whose fortunes are so closely linked with those of its southern neighbour, New Delhi will carefully watch how the new men in Kathmandu conduct themselves in the coming weeks and months. The jubilant crowds we see on television screens speak of relief and hope. Since neither is a permanent factor in the merry-go-round of politics, those crowds can just as easily turn either into the Maoist mobs that have ravaged Nepal for years or protesters to be mown down like the civil war’s 13,000 victims.......

[Ray]

Monarchy gone, but no consensus on government

Nava Thakuria
12 June 2008

As the King vacates the throne, Nepal's political parties squabble for power

More at:
http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?op...1254&Itemid=31

The old guards of Nepal politics are not ready to abdicate their space to the new kid on the block, no matter what be its popularity.

Troubled times ahead.